Q. What is a Scholarly or Peer Reviewed article?

Both scholarly and peer reviewed articles are conversations between scholars or academics in a field. They are written by scholars in a field for other scholars in that field. Many students think that these terms just mean a source is appropriate for college-level research, but they actually have a very specific definition. 

Scholarly Articles

A scholarly article comes from a collection of articles written by scholars or academics in a field, or by someone who has done research in the field. The main purpose of a scholarly journal is to report on original research or experimentation in order to make such information available to the rest of the scholarly community.

Peer Reviewed Articles

A peer reviewed article comes from a publication where articles go through an official and strict editorial process. This process involves review and approval by the author's peers (people who are experts in the same subject area). Most (but not all) scholarly publications are peer reviewed. Some trade publications are peer-reviewed.

Non-scholarly or popular sources

Another type of source you may have heard mentioned is non-scholarly or popular articles. These are articles published for a general audience. They are written to be read by the general public and generally do not require any special knowledge or study to understand. These include magazines, newspapers, most government, and non- government organizations publications, and almost all websites and articles that are published on the Internet, as well as most primary sources like speeches, diaries, raw statistics, and government documents.  These can vary dramatically in their level of credibility.  Make sure that you are always evaluating every source of information you use to see if it is a reliable source, especially non-scholarly sources. Think critically about anything you find, especially on the Internet.

To help determine the credibility of a source that you encounter on the internet please refer to the following resources:

• What is CRAAPO?
• SIFT
• Four Moves & a Habit
• Evaluating Sources.

Trade Journals or Trade Publications

Trade publications are written for practitioners in a field to share information and best practices with other people in that same field. It is considered a higher-level source than most other non-scholarly sources and while it may discuss the findings of scholarly sources it does not report on original research or experimentation, so it is not a scholarly source. 

Not all information is going to be covered by a single type of source, so you may need sources from a variety of types for your paper. Make sure to check your assignment instructions to see what types of sources are required for your assignment.

For more information on the different source types please see the Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources tip sheet.

If you still have questions you can chat in real-time with a librarian here.